O.J. accused in Vegas robbery over sports memorabilia

LAS VEGAS — An apparent audiotape of O.J. Simpson’s standoff with men he accused of stealing his memorabilia begins with the ex-NFL star demanding, “Don’t let nobody out this room. … Think you can steal my (expletive) and sell it?”

Simpson was arrested Sunday and booked at a county jail on charges connected with what police described as a robbery at a Las Vegas hotel.

In an audiotape released Monday by the celebrity news Web site TMZ.com, Simpson is heard shouting questions while other men shout orders to the men in the room.

TMZ said the recording was made on a handheld recorder belonging to Thomas Riccio, co-owner of the auction house Universal Rarities.

Simpson has said Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors were selling some of his items. Riccio set up a meeting with collectors under the guise that he had a private collector interested in buying Simpson’s items.

Simpson said autographed sports collectibles, his Hall of Fame certificate, a photograph with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and video from his first wedding were all his, and that they were stolen from him and were about to be fenced by unethical collectors.

Police said they were not sure who owned the memorabilia. But they say the manner in which the goods were taken was under investigation.

Prosecutors filed formal charges against Simpson on Tuesday, alleging the fallen football star committed 10 felonies, including kidnapping, in the armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in a casino-hotel room.

Simpson, 60, was booked on five felony counts, including suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. District Attorney David Roger filed those charges and added five other felonies, including kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to court documents.

Simpson, accused along with three other men, faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted. He was being held without bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday.

Simpson said he did not call the police to help reclaim the items because he has found the police unresponsive to him ever since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman were slain in 1994.

“The police, since my trouble, have not worked out for me,” he said.

Milwaukee landlord to pay $110,000 in bias settlement

MILWAUKEE — An owner of some West Allis apartment buildings will pay $110,000 on claims that property managers discriminated against black apartment hunters, telling them units were not available when they were, under a settlement reached in the case.

The agreement resolves a 2005 federal lawsuit brought by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council and three black testers against the owner and managers of two apartment buildings.

The buildings’ owner, James J. Krahn, owns a total of 13 properties in West Allis, city assessor Charles Ruud said.

Krahn did not admit wrongdoing, according to the settlement.

A spokeswoman for Krukowski & Costello, the law firm representing Krahn, claimed in a prepared statement that the housing council has sent hundreds of testers over many years to Krahn’s properties “with elaborate cover stories and tape recorders.”

“Despite this process, they ultimately filed a complaint involving less than a handful of people,” the statement said. “Much of the Fair Housing Council’s complaint was actually dismissed by the court prior to settlement and a portion of the settlement was paid by an insurance carrier.”

But William Tisdale, the council’s president and chief executive officer, denied sending hundreds of testers to Krahn’s properties, calling that allegation outlandish. The council sent a small group of testers to the complexes over a four-month period, Tisdale said.

Kathy Charlton, an attorney who represented the council, said a minor claim based on a narrow section of law was dismissed, but that the “heart and crux of the complaint” was based on the Federal Fair Housing Act.

The settlement will be divided among the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council, the three testers and their attorneys, Tisdale said.

Terms of the settlement also call for Krahn to pay for a fair housing seminar for other property owners and managers in West Allis and to pay to train his own managers in fair housing practices for the next three years.

Yale to return Machu Picchu artifacts

LIMA, Peru — Yale University has agreed to return thousands of Inca artifacts taken from Peru’s famed Machu Picchu citadel almost a century ago, the Peruvian government said Saturday.

“Finally it has been established that Peru is the owner of each one of the pieces,” Housing Minister Hernán Garrido Lecca, who led negotiations with Yale, told Lima’s Radioprogramas radio.

The New Haven, Conn.-based university said in a statement on its Web site that some of the pieces will remain there temporarily for research, but did not specify how many.

Peru demanded the collection back last year, saying it never relinquished ownership when Yale scholar Hiram Bingham III rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911. All told, he exported more than 4,000 artifacts, including mummies, ceramics and bones from what has become one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites.

Yale responded with a proposal to split the collection. Negotiations broke down, and Peru threatened a lawsuit.

Under the agreement, Yale and Peru will cosponsor first a traveling expedition featuring Bingham’s pieces and later a museum in the Andean city of Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital.
“This understanding represents a new model of international cooperation providing for the collaborative stewardship of cultural and natural treasures,” Yale said in the statement.

The ruins at Machu Picchu, located on a mountaintop above a lush valley southeast of Lima, are Peru’s top tourist attraction.